Check out a spectator cam version of the Fedor Emelianenko vs. Tim Sylvia fight. Here’s the long televised version.

Here’s Andrei Arlovski vs. Ben Rothwell. This was an exciting standup war that did showcase a little bit of the ground game as well.

Anthony Johnson supposedly got robbed at the hands of Kevin Burns in this fight. Check it out for a climatic finish.

We all thought James Irvin was going to last longer than this. Check out the short fight between him and reigning middleweight champ Anderson Silva at 205.

Have you ever seen a Peruvian necktie in MMA before? Watch CB Dollaway vs. Jesse Taylor here.

MMA fans and bloggers have been talking a lot about Cain Valesquez and there’s no surprise why. Watch his fight against Jake O’Brien.

This is just as far as fights go, not the announcing or the production value as a whole. Affliction had a HD stream which provided better picture quality, but the UFC still has a better overall production value. Megadeth wasn’t too bad for Affliction as they didn’t go overboard with live music and allowed the fights to continue at a reasonable pace. I was expecting them to open with Symphony of Destruction, which they did.

Best
Andrei Arlovski showing his power against Ben Rothwell throughout three rounds of fighting. Even though Arlovski unloaded on Rothwell on multiple occasions, Big Ben didn’t give up until he collapsed.

Cain Valesquez didn’t let Jake O’Brien do anything in their short and one-sided UFC fight. Valesquez was quick to put on a crucifix and wail away at O’Brien until the fight was stopped in the first round. Valesquez is being hailed as the next big thing in the UFC heavyweight division and this fight only helped.

Josh Barnett dropped Pedro Rizzo lifeless with a shot that rocked the canvas and a lot of televisions. Barnett went on to land a hammerfist for good measure immediately following Rizzo’s fall as Herb Dean darted to halt the action. Barnett got the crowd going and said a few things to hype himself up. You can tell he wants to be on the next Affliction PPV and I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s fighting someone bigger and better.

Props to C.B. Dollaway and his first round Peruvian necktie submission over Jesse Taylor! Also, who could forget Fedor Emelianenko’s lightening fast annihilation of Tim Sylvia. I expect to see video or since the fight was only 36 seconds long, an animated GIF of the entire fight.

Worst
Brandon Vera. Another boring fight and at light heavyweight against Reese Andy? The guy has potential, but he can’t seem to finish any fights…or provide much action inside the cage.

Two insanely fast main events. Not that we can blame Anderson Silva and Fedor Emelianenko for demolishing the competition at a furious pace, but I’m sure many fans wanted to see a little more of James Irvin and Tim Sylvia. The combined time for both main events? One minute and 37 seconds.

But overall, who can complain about more than a dozen MMA fights in one night? Sure, it’s tedious to swtich back and forth even with a DVR/TiVo, but as long as the UFC has competition, they’ll step up to provide more fights. And more fights mean more chances for the sport to hit the headlines on ESPN, Sports Illustrated, and many other big publications.

Now we wait for next weekend to see if CBS can step up to provide another exciting night of MMA fighting.

The UFC heavyweight division is falling apart.

At best, it’s a nag with two broken legs trying to race against a field of less known, but far more aggressive and focussed competition. I wrote in a piece in January saying that if the UFC heavyweight division didn’t get an injection of talent, it wouldn’t recover on its own, and since the only serious pickup the division has made in the last few months is Shane Carwin, who was impressive at UFC 84, it’s impossible to say that the division has done any real work to recover.

They haven’t invested their money in a single top ten heavyweight since signing Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, they’ve failed to put UFC champion Randy Couture back in the Octagon and they’ve turned Nogueira into their paper champion by matching him up with the incredibly undeserving Frank Mir, hoping that having both fighters coach a season of the Ultimate Fighter series will give them time to develop a serious contender.

In the meantime, Affliction has put together a single card consisting of four former world champions (three from the UFC and one from Pride), ressurected the career of legend Pedro “The Rock” Rizzo (a three time UFC top contender) and speckled the roster with more top ten big men than the UFC has on their entire roster.

Read the full story

I have a confession to make. I might be the only person on this internets-web-thingy talking about the arts of martial (you know, the Pankrations) that’s never been to the famous “underground”. I know Joe Rogan goes there, and Dana White has been known to interact with fans there, but I’ve never been there. Heard it puts hair on ‘ya chest. I’m not sure if that makes me about it all because I might never have been sullied, or a point and mock target, ala FightLinker.

Whatever the case, I thought of the underground and what they must be saying (a million voices all screaming at once I presume) about this Ben Rothwell character. I’d like to throw in my two cents and be a frontrunner on the backlash bandwagon scheduled to leave a message board near you sometime in the next two months.

I’m referring to the report from Sam Caplan yesterday, and I’m not whoring the guy - Fiveouncesofpain.com - but he says he hear from a guy, who knows a guy, who once met Big Ben. Apparently Ben Rothwell won’t be in the IFL Grand Prix - Kurt Angle swears he’s available - because of contractual issues. If I read this right, Ben is keeping his options open in case someone else asks him to the homecoming dance. He wouldn’t mind going steady with IFL kingfish Kurt Otto again, but I think he’d like a sweeter deal. Perhaps they never “go anywhere anymore!”

Read the full story